Posted
by
msmash
on Thursday August 04, 2016 @10:40AM
from the old-computers dept.

It's been a while since Apple upgraded its MacBook Air, MacBook Pro, and Mac Pro models. Four years, one month, and twenty-four days, to be exact, in case of the MacBook Pro. Apple is inexplicably still selling the exact same models for its Mac line that it introduced in 2012. Pretty much every Windows OEM has had an Intel Skylake-powered processor in its laptops for more than a year now, but Apple's computing lineup is still shipping with the three-to-four years old processor, and graphics card. Things have gotten so bad, that MacRumors' Buying Guide, which is considered to be an "online institution" among Apple nerds, has flagged all of Apple laptops as "Don't Buy" In a column, The Verge's Sam Byford says that Apple should stop selling the old laptops. He writes: Apple iterates quickly and consistently in mobile because the rate of technological progress is so much more dramatic in that arena. The company does amazing work to keep its iPhones and iPads ahead of competitors, performance-wise. Simple Intel processor upgrades are less important to laptops these days, however, and I'm finding this 2012 MacBook Pro fine to work from right now -- faster than my 2015 MacBook, at least, which is enough for my needs. But that doesn't mean it isn't unconscionable for Apple to continue to sell outdated products to people who may not know any better. Is the company really saving that much money by using 2012 processors and 4GB of RAM as standard? Even an update to Intel's Haswell chips from 2013 would have brought huge battery life improvements. Apple is bound by the whims of its suppliers to a certain extent, and it may not always make sense for the company to upgrade its products with every single new chip or GPU that comes out. But there's a certain point at which it just starts to look like absent-mindedness, and many Mac computers are well past that point now. [...] If Apple doesn't want to keep its products reasonably current, that's its prerogative. But if that truly is the case, maybe it shouldn't sell them at all.It's also ironic, coming from a company whose executive not long ago made fun of people who had five years old computer. Folks at Accidental Tech Podcast also discussed the same recently.

This summary is incredibly stupid, the 4 year old model referenced is the base model, that indeed does use the same parts, however there HAVE been plenty of updates to the MacBook Pro line since then, introducing SSDs, Retina displays, slimmer builds, and current generation MBPs have Broadwell CPUs. Now for sure they are due for an update but I wouldn't be surprised to see that happen this calendar year.

The whole article summary is cookoo flamebait. First Apple does have skylake processors in it's line up. https://apple.slashdot.org/sto... [slashdot.org]They just don't use the intel model name "skylake" on their product descriptions.

The alleged website saying "dont buy" is not complaining about this. For example the macpro they list as "don't buy" is actually "can't buy". Apple doesn't list that model in it's store. And their reasoning for not buying it is because it's not a retina version, and there's not any price difference with the retina.

Finally like every single computer maker, mac does have a range of models and guess what the lower end ones have slower procesors. But they also get an hour longer battery life than the i7 models.

In fact on that website the buy, don't buy, neutral opinions are based on expectations of refresh and availability to help people figure out if now is a good time to buy. Apple is old-school marketing, they don't talk about tomorrow's product until it is today's product. Customers don't want to buy something that will be updated immediately after purchasing it, so that's where that website comes in to play. That website helps predict future products and advices based on predictions (and is often wrong!), it

As someone who is physically holding a newer than 2012 corporate issued macbook pro retina, I can attest that there are newer products than the 2012 version. Mine has an i7, nVidia graphics and an SSD. I am pretty disappointed with their choice to use AMD graphics in newer models, and am reluctant to buy, but work issued shit is work issued. It is faster than my personal 2012 Macbook Pro primarily due to SSD performance, processor speed means very little in a laptop for most people (and I question why you wouldn't just use a desktop if you really care, for say games or compute heavy workloads).

The Lenovo P series would like to have a word about compute-heavy workloads in a laptop form factor.

Perhaps it is flamebait, but it brings up an interesting (to me) question. At this stage of the game, Apple makes most of its money off of its mobile devices. Sure, it still sells Macs - and people still like and buy them. But Mac's aren't their core business any more - and their single-supplier model has kept that part of their business capped at a pretty modest volume.

Maybe now it would finally make sense for Apple to license OS/X to other OEM's. That way, they'd make some money off of the software (t

Not to mention that the 4 year old model is a legacy model - the only Mac laptop with FireWire, a CD/DVD drive, and an Ethernet port. (As well as a non-Retina screen.) It fills a very specific niche in the Mac market.

Most of the rest of the Mac lineup is closer to a year old. Intel's bobble of the last processor refresh definitely affected Macs - the chips that would likely to be used for most Mac models were delayed (some long enough that Apple has obviously decided to wait for the next generation) or n

Ahh, now we are getting somewhere, that's atleast a CPU right? But you still failed because Broadwell is from 2014. It's 2016 and everyone else is shipping skylake.

So... it's a two year-old computer, not a four year-old computer. An every-other-year update cycle seems pretty reasonable, given the pace at which processor performance is changing these days (slower than it used to). As for GPUs, meh, these aren't gaming rigs.

Ahh, now we are getting somewhere, that's atleast a CPU right? But you still failed because Broadwell is from 2014. It's 2016 and everyone else is shipping skylake.

So... it's a two year-old computer, not a four year-old computer. An every-other-year update cycle seems pretty reasonable, given the pace at which processor performance is changing these days (slower than it used to). As for GPUs, meh, these aren't gaming rigs.

I got my 2 year old retina 13" MBP about 2 years ago. It's still a better laptop than the two 'high end' Lenovos my employer foisted on me in the interim.

A) It's unixy under the hood. I can bring up a bash shell and work on the command line.B) It's case is good. It doesn't fall apart over time.C) The retina screen makes working on text better than on a lower resolution screenD) It's neither too big nor too heavyE) It isn't running WindowsF) The battery lasts long enough for my needs.G) The RAM and SSD are maxed out.

Don't buy any machine for specs--buy it because it does what you need. Buy it because the one you have now doesn't.
The notion that I should buy a new computer every two years is ridiculous. My last PowerBook lasted five. It was getting a *little* long in the tooth for digital photo editing but I could have waited another ueR. It was definitely slow for video editing.
The machines are likely labeled as "do not buy" as much because people are expecting new models as anything else.Apple's currently running a promo for education users which is the normal strategy for clearing inventory before replacements are sold.
There's a solid argument that Apple should stop selling *computers* but the suggestion in tbe article is just inane.

So, the 8 year old system doesn't do what I need, so I should upgrade to the 4 year old version because it will be "good enough" for now as the same price I should be paying for current hardware?
Computers are much like transportation. Can you get there by walking? Sure, it might take a few days, but you can. Does that mean you shouldn't upgrade to a car that can get you there many times as fast? Them selling old outdated systems even as an option is shameful in the extreme and they are just suckering people in with brand loyalty.

Speaking of cars, Apple is the exact opposite of Tesla. They sell outdated tech and make a huge profit. Tesla sells near-science-fiction tech and loses $15,000 per car.

Maybe that's what happens when you get big and greedy and realize that people still wait in line for hours to buy a "new" device that is for the most part identical to the last 3 or 4 models. Let's hope Tesla never transitions to that business strategy.

That was true back in 2006 not so much in 2016.For most people specs do not matter. However 4 year old specs at brand new prices isn't going to be too helpful. As Windows PC makers are using that gap to fill the void. Much like how Apple did so back in 2006 Where Windows XP was an again OS without a new one to take its place, designed for a way of computing that was common back in the 1990's. OS X and Macs at the time were the modern solution to most people. Thus its popularity.However with older Macs de

I don't own any Macs, but my next computer will be a Mac. It's more than a fashion statement.

Linux still doesn't "just work." If it does "just work," it's probably because you have old hardware. Linux will probably never be ready for the desktop unless hardware stops changing.

Microsoft? They've completely crossed the line with Windows 10. They're trying to make it like a big phone with invasion of privacy and telemetry. Microsoft has abandoned power users. I suppose gamers still need to use it, but they're giving up a lot.

Chromebooks aren't made for power users and are glorified web browsers.

What's left? Macs. They have good support, a desktop that works, and are based on BSD. Since it's not really a gaming platform, having the latest and greatest specs aren't that important, but generally they have solid specs. Expensive? They retain their resale value. I wish I could get rid of my 2014 Asus Zenbook even though it's really fast. Windows 10 is horrible and the drivers are constantly breaking when there are updates. I doubt I'd get a fair value on eBay or Craigslist, and I don't want to expose myself to fraud and/or idiots.

Um...they do perform better. With lower specs. Android is bloated and buggy and requires more raw power to accomplish the same productivity. Yes, I'm going to give you a car analogy: In 1985, you could buy a car that produced around 160 horsepower from a 5.7-liter V8 engine. Today's V6 engines produce 260+ horsepower from small 3.5-liter V6 engines.

Yes, your car in 1985 had a larger engine and used more gasoline, but it still gets outperformed by smaller, more efficient units today.

On most benchmarks, the iPhone is faster. The iPhone SE, in fact, seems to be the top performer among iPhones, and it's the cheapest of the current generation.

Samsung's phones (and anything using the Qualcomm chips) tend to outperform the A-series chips when it comes to multi-threaded tasks, so you'll see physics simulations on high-end Android devices run better than iPhones. But honestly, that's not much of what most people do on their phones. On any real-world (ish) benchmark to do with browsing, IO or framerate, the iPhone is in the same ballpark or much faster.

Dollar-for-dollar, the iPhone is basically the best bet in town, even with 11-month-old silicon. Given that they're going to be announcing the next generation next month, this is only going to get better for Apple.

Look, there are lots of reasons to complain about both Apple and iPhones, and their SoCs have never been one of them. They produce power-efficient, highly integrated SoCs with great I/O throughput.

I'm just asking WHY they should discontinue stuff that is faster (which in many cases is what's important to the average user) than the stuff they were making last year. There comes a point when stuff is just 'good enough', the same way many people never upgraded from XP to Vista because XP was simply Good Enough for everything they were doing.

The 2012 MacBook Pro is faster than the 2015 regular MacBook, largely because the priorities are different (the Pro is supposed to be a productivity laptop while the regular is more for maximum battery life).

Pretty much every Windows OEM has had an Intel Skylake-powered processor in its laptops for more than a year now, but Apple's computing lineup is still shipping with the three-to-four years old processor, and graphics card.

Ahem. That's a bald-faced lie. The 2016 MacBook now has a Skylake processor.

It's been a while since Apple upgraded its MacBook Air, MacBook Pro, and Mac Pro models. Four years, one month, and twenty-four days, to be exact, in case of the MacBook Pro. Apple is inexplicably still selling the exact same models for its Mac line that it introduced in 2012. Pretty much every Windows OEM has had an Intel Skylake-powered processor in its laptops for more than a year now, but Apple's computing lineup is still shipping with the three-to-

Not to mention that the 2014 Mac mini was actually a downgrade from the 2012 models. The 2014 models also introduced non-upgradable RAM which is a step backwards for most of us. And last, they're still using 5400RPM hard drives and charge a premium for it. I'd rather see a smaller 120GB SSD than a slow 500GB hard drive.

Which completely misses his point, i.e., that there is no Mac at any price or spec powerful enough to support Oculus. We aren't talking about cheap boxes here.

“It just boils down to the fact that Apple doesn’t prioritize high-end GPUs. You can buy a $6,000 Mac Pro with the top-of-the-line AMD FirePro D700, and it still doesn’t match our recommended spec. So if they prioritize higher-end GPUs like they used to for a while back in the day, we’d love to support Mac. But right now, there’s just not a single machine out there that supports it.”

This is a sensible strategy. Moores Law is over. Intels processor performance is only 30% better than it was 5 years ago. Computers aren't improving much year over year overall. The last jump in decent improvement was the introduction of SSD's. I am sorry to say it looks like digital computing is a dead end: we won't be seeing AI or the Singularity everyone wishes for with digital computers.

This is a sensible strategy. Moores Law is over. Intels processor performance is only 30% better than it was 5 years ago. Computers aren't improving much year over year overall. The last jump in decent improvement was the introduction of SSD's. I am sorry to say it looks like digital computing is a dead end: we won't be seeing AI or the Singularity everyone wishes for with digital computers.

Not true with Macs as video professionals and users of the latest IPhones want USB type-c and thunderbolt 3 to move video over with better i/o. Battery is important too!

So yes it is not about the CPU, but that does not make these dated for expensive mac products for artists and iphone users who want to transfer and fast charge their devices

Most iphone users charge their phones using a charger. Artists make up about 1% of the Mac market now. The common Mac user doesn't need thunderbolt 3 to browse reddit at Starbucks. There is no compelling reason to upgrade to a marginally faster computer.

A quick check of Wikipedia [wikipedia.org] would tell you what most people who follow Apple already know: that Apple has a habit of quietly revving its current computers without much fanfare, upgrading their computers on a regular basis.

The current 13 inch and 15 inch MacBook Pros that Apple sell were last updated early 2015. (This correlates with Apple's own on-line store. [apple.com])

It's not to suggest their current models aren't a little long in the tooth. And it's not to suggest that Apple may be a little behind in using the latest and greatest processors--though one problem Apple has is that they sell quite a bit of volume, so sometimes being on the bleeding edge may not permit them to get the volume of parts they need. But they most certainly are not selling a 4 year old computer.

They actually are. As of this writing, the non-retina Macbook Pro is still available for sale on Apple's site. Go to apple.com, click Mac -> Macbook Pro -> Buy and then scroll about halfway down the page. That model, which is being sold for $1099, hasn't been updated since June 2012, though it did have a $100 price cut in July 2014.

Thunderbolt is kind of an bust & Intel low pci-e count does not really help. But at least with skylake they will get DMI 3.0 that moves the 2.0 X4 DMI link to 3.0 X4.

Also the big thin push hurts them more with cutting ports and only having 1 TB bus so that all ext stuff has to shear the TB link with DP data. Now if they do put some stuff like E-net and wifi on the DMI / chipset bus. Then in the laptops / mini they can switch the X16 to X8 video (if the system has an non Intel gpu) X4 TB 3.0 X4 pci-e storage or with out video X8 2 TB 3.0 buses X8 2 X4 storage.

Now the macpro is a real bust and with 1 cpu the pci-e lane count does not give them the room to do TB 3.0 without an lot of changes. Like switch the video to X8 X8 freeing up 3 X4 links for TB and 1 more X4 for the 2th pci-e storage card. or adding an 2rd cpu giving them room for 2-4 storage cards and 4-6 TB 3.0 buses + 10 GB e-net.

As it happens, I am writing this on a 4-year old MacBook Pro. It is fast and reliable and I have yet to find any Mac software I want that I cannot run. If I lost this one, I would definitely want to buy a replacement, but I don't feel a need to upgrade just because. Now, I know that having the latest-greatest CPU is cool, but what exactly would that buy me if I bought it?

One part of me agrees, but another part of me says If the stuff you need to do still runs OK then whats the problem?Apple is completely a walled garden so they can also control the software bloat.

It seems most of the push for new consumer hardware is actually because Microsoft themselves are always shovelling more and more sloppy and pointless resource-gobbling crap into Windows, and that the culture that Windows itself follows and encourages is to write temporary files and other crap all over the C: drive without ever deleting it.

I've met enough non-technical people that somehow believe that the thing to do is to to buy a new PC every time they fill up their old one or when it slows to a crawl because they can't stop installing shit that runs in the background.

Is it reliable and do what you need it to do? Can you afford it? If the answer is yes, leave the measurbating to the tech nerds and buy what meets your needs. if its OS X, get a Mac, if Windows does it buy a machine that runs it. If OSS is your thing get a machine that runs Linux. I have several Macs 5 or more years old nah are still in daily use and do what I need just fine. I don't care if some hipster at Starbucks thinks it déclassé. YMMV.

As for MacRumors, they seem to be of the opinion that a major update is on the way and it is worth waiting to see before buying. I agree with that sentiment if you do not absolutely need one now or want the free Beats...

This entire suggestion is stupid unless consumers enjoy paying for obscenely priced factory memory and non-removable hard drives, which these components being replaceable are two great features that still exist in this "dinosaur" model they're still selling.

And yes, I'm still considering biting the bullet to buy one for those specific reasons, since Apple has gone the asinine route and forces you to buy their memory and hard drive upgrades at time of purchase for every other model they sell. I already own a late-2012 i7 Mac Mini (which is almost identical hardware to this model) that absolutely SCREAMS with 16GB RAM and SSD upgrade, so I'm already familiar with how this "ancient" laptop would likely perform with some minor replaceable components.

Once this model disappears, you will be forced to purchase damn near every hardware upgrade you might ever need up-front and all from Apple. Dunno about anyone else, but I won't be enjoying that stupidity at all.

Before Steve Jobs died Apple were completely creaming everyone in basically everything they did innovation and consumer experience wise. No one else made nearly as good laptops, the iPad was as big a revolution as they get in electronic devices, the iPhone was a complete revolution that bankrupted any company that didn't clone it virtually down to the appearance of every icon in GUI, the iPod, iTunes bankrupted all major record stores, etc -- every 2 years or so they would come out with something that blew everything else out of the water.

Now in the 5 years all we have is a stupid watch.

The difference between Apple with Jobs and Apple under Cook couldn't be starker. This is new to you people??

It's been a while since Apple upgraded its MacBook Air, MacBook Pro, and Mac Pro models. Four years, one month, and twenty-four days, to be exact, in case of the MacBook Pro.

Way to go with the half-truths.

The obsolete 2012 Macbook Pro is indeed still on Apple's books -but Its long been banished from the main MacBook Pro page on Apple's website and tucked away at the bottom of the "Buy" page. Presumably because some big customers still want a spinning rust hard drive and an optical drive. Nobody who has done 5 minutes of research would buy one unless that's what they wanted.

Meanwhile the flagship Retina Macbook Pro range got new processors and unique haptic touchpads just over a year ago, and the (probably to be discontinued) MacBook Air got a minor bump this spring. The MacBook got Skylake in the spring and the 27" iMac got Skylake last November.

Now, Apple do have a problem - 15-month old computers still aren't sexy - but its partly due to Intel's woes with the various configurations of Skylake chips which have been trickling out gradually over the last year. E.g. the 15" Retina Macbook Pro really needs the i7-6x70HQ chips with Iris Pro which weren't launched until Q1 this year, the i7 version of the 13" rMBP needs the i7-6567U which, according to Intels ARK site [intel.com], hasn't been launched yet. The architectural speed-up with Skylake isn't that huge, so using a chip with lower TDP or inferior GPU just for the sake of "Skylake" can easily end up as a downgrade.

Dell, HP et. al. have a million models and are happy to build systems around whatever chips are available today - they have some pretty tempting MacBook-killers but you do have to look carefully at the power rating & GPU of the processor before declaring a winner. Meanwhile, Intel have started the hype for Kaby Lake before finishing the Skylake range - its possible that Apple will wait for that, since it has Thunderbolt3 on-chip and Apple are presumably going to standardise on TB3.

Not completely defending Apple here - the Mac Pro is nearly 3 years old, the Mac Mini 2 years. Both of those were also affected by Intel delays but there ought to be something Apple could have done to maintain interest. Chances are, the Mac Pro (basically a dedicated Final Cut X machine and a waste of money if you don't run OpenCL software) just isn't selling. The Intel delays aren't exactly new and its within Apple's power to maybe design some new Macs around available chips. Unfortunately, Tim Cook has been doing a very good impression of someone more interested in watch straps than full-featured computers, so people are worried.

But, no, folks: the flagship Retina MacBook Pro is not starting kindergarten this year, and the rumor sites are flagging them "don't buy" because they're expecting new models by the end of the year.

I am so sick of Slashdot posting bold-faced lies and FUD on their front page. You can buy Macbooks with Skylake, which is a CPU architecture that wasn't even released until about a year ago, and Macbook Pros with Broadwell, an architecture released in early 2015.

If you buy a 13" Macbook Pro (latest generation) on apple.com right now, it will come with a CPU and chipset released to market by Intel about a year and a half ago, not four years ago.

And if you're complaining about the physical chassis, well, maybe it's just that Apple has reached what they consider to be the optimal layout and dimensions for their chassis. I mean, IBM/Lenovo hardly ever changed their ThinkPad physical design characteristics for a number of years in the mid to late 2000s, until Lenovo started messing with a good thing, and ended up utterly ruining the ThinkPad brand and stopped providing the features that people who bought them wanted/needed.

I am not an Apple fanboy; I think the company is pretentious, greedy, anti-competitive, and significantly less visionary with the loss of Steve Jobs. The very little they do for open source is overshadowed by their aggressive litigiousness and the walled garden platform they created.

BUT -- and this is a big thing for me -- Apple can do *more* with 4 or 8 GB of RAM than Microsoft can do with 16 GB of RAM. Their software is extremely well-designed, optimized for fast, high-fidelity displays, and the font rendering is beautiful and second to none. They don't have a ton of old legacy code like Windows does; the legacy that does exist has easily been swept under the rug in favor of new designs. And being based on BSD is a huge plus for software dev.

The efficiency and responsiveness of Macbook Pro and iPhone has made me appreciate and admire these *products* that I own, even though I only started buying Apple products in 2015 after spending decades swearing I never would and preferring GNU/Linux or Windows-if-absolutely-necessary.

I'm tired of having to grossly over-spec my machines (and often end up paying even more than I paid for my Apple products) for trash software like Microsoft Windows and Android, two great examples of over-engineering plus bloat plus the worst parts of an open or semi-open platform (security vulnerabilities, malware, etc.)... A $1800 MBP with a year-old processor and 8 gigs of RAM is faster, more enjoyable to use, lighter, and has better battery life than a $3000 13" Windows 10 "ultrabook". And my $1000 iPhone 6S Plus with 2 gigs of RAM is faster, far less buggy, completely free of bloat, and easier to use than any Android phone on the market.

Again, I'm not an Apple fanboy. I don't love the company and I have zero loyalty to them. I dare someone else to do better. For years I thought everyone else *did* do better, but it's clear to me now that I was actually deluding myself into thinking that having 4 gigs of memory wasted by background service bloat on Windows was "necessary".

I'm very satisfied with their products right now and extremely dissatisfied with their competition. I'd actually recommend to those in the market for a laptop to seriously consider the Macbook Pro. It's not ideal for gaming, of course, but it's great for anything from content creation to heavy web surfing to flash games and even does VMs extremely well in VirtualBox or VMware. And I also do some heavy C++ and Java dev on this box. It just never slows down no matter what I do. Love it.

"Apple can do *more* with 4 or 8 GB of RAM than Microsoft can do with 16 GB of RAM. "

This is the dumbest thing I have ever heard....I have 12gb of ram on my win 7 machine and i have never maxed it out.... multiple versions of VS, photoshop, countess chrome tabs. What planet are you on?

I've notice that Apple has really shit the bed when it comes to... well... everything. It's like since Jobs died, Cook pulled the rudder right off the boat and now he's just standing there, looking confusedly at the rudder in his hand.

But it's another thing entirely to be charging massive premiums for hardware so old that I'm surprised the parts are even still being manufactured. Where is Apple sourcing their parts at this point, Ebay?

I want a new Mac for work, and I want to give employees the option of using a Mac instead of Windows, given how brain-damaged Microsoft is being with respect to Windows 10, but I'll be damned if I'm going to drop 2-3k per machine on hardware whose PC equivalent can be purchased for peanuts on Craigslist.

As far as CPUs are concerned, they arn't really that big of a deal because lets face it, the past *several* generations of CPUs from Intel have only incremental differences in performance. Most of the differences have gone into power efficiency improvements, and support for newer accessory technologies like DDR RAM, USB, PCI, onboard GPU, etc. But there have been massive jumps in what GPUs can do, and currently available Macs are a joke by comparison. Right now, for example, there's not even any point in porting current AAA games to Mac because the hardware won't be able to run them.

There is something to be said about taking the conservative approach for some things, for example one thing I like about OSX is that Apple doesn't make massive fundamental changes the way Microsoft does. And Apple's support is still second to none. But Apple really needs to pull their thumb out and start refreshing their hardware.

Apple has a massive opportunity right now with the whole Windows 10 fiasco, very similar to how IBM had an opportunity with OS/2 during the turbulent switch between Windows 3.1 and Windows 95. Unfortunately, also like IBM, I'm expecting Apple to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory because they're management is too paralyzed by their own undeserved egos to do what needs to be done.

" Even an update to Intel's Haswell chips from 2013 would have brought huge battery life improvements" All MacBook Pro Retina has Haswell processors.

Haswell is pretty outdated.

Hell my i7 4770k is still rocking fast and not obsolete like a 3 year old chip was in the 1990s by any sense of the means, but skylake has big improvements for power effeciency, wifi speeds, intel graphics, usb type c, usb 3.1, and NVMe and thunderbolt 3 over my older system. This is especially true if I am paying big bucks for a mac or a gaming tower.

It's one thing to buy a computer which is reasonable at the time and still be using it 4-5 years later because it is still perfectly fine for your needs. That's a sensible thing to do.

It's another thing entirely to pay new-computer prices for a new PC whose hardware is basically 4 years old. That's a borderline insane thing to do. You can get a lot of longevity out of modern computer hardware, but you can't stave off obsolescence forever and starting from a poi

Actually I'm struggling with this right now. I have a 2006 core2duo macbook, which is a nice machine still but there's no OS updates. I've been trying for days now to figure out how one converts this to a Linux machine. Ideally I want to USB boot linux but I'm starting to give up on that plan. The trouble is these machines, unlike newer ones, have 32 bit UEFI boot. apps that create USB Live sticks, like Mac USB loader, won't work with UEFI. I ran into a git project called enterprise that supposedly c

Clover appears to be using ReFind. SO what's the difference?My main goal is to boot a USB stick. If I can't have that I'd like a dual boot hard disk. and if I can't have that i'd settle for a Linux hard drive.

SO could you explain your process more and what state it leaves the mac in? dual boot? linux only?

The process is trial and error. I did it once and that was enough for me. I have a dual boot configuration with Snow Leopard and Mint Linux. After installing the new booter, you might be able to boot from USB. I haven't tried it.

You think the machines weren't horrendously overpriced on day one either?

I have 10 Macs in the next room (I work in schools).

I guarantee you that they get one-hundredth of the usage of any other PC on site. And yet they cost nearly 8 times as much. And we give the kids free-reign, a lot of the staff use Mac at home, our systems are mostly online so support either setup, they are tied into our AD and file storage, they are connected to the same network, etc.

You think the machines weren't horrendously overpriced on day one either?

I have 10 Macs in the next room (I work in schools).

I guarantee you that they get one-hundredth of the usage of any other PC on site.

Similar situation, the last place I was had a shithot mac suite, 2 rooms of 32 top line macs. All duel booted in windows, the only time they ever really got used was when the laptops ran out and then they booted in windows. Only a couple teachers wanted to use them as macs and even then they generally booted windows mode unless for something specifically mac.

Late-2011 17" here, bought it in 2012 when they were discontinued, 16GB RAM and a 480GB SSD (from about two years ago). The trackpad has worn out, but I have a replacement on order. I immediately downgraded it to 10.6.8 (it shipped with 10.7), and only recently upgraded to 10.9. I also recently purchased a used Core i7 Mac Mini (6,2) which I haven't upgraded from 8GB RAM yet.

I had one PPC and two Intel Aluminum era Powerbooks, and that case was flimsy crap (for instance, CDs wouldn't eject because the case